Summer Newsletter July 2008

 A huge amount has been accomplished in the last 6 months.

 Martyn Huxter has worked tirelessly to install infrastructure at Hallr Wood with the help of a few stalwarts and some of our Awards for All grant.

 We now have; a large flattened area for our fire circle & Norwegian tipi, tool storage shed, large open sided Craft Tent, compost toilet & male urinal, access for larger items & emergencies at Badger Bridge with a wider path. We also have parking in Ray Hick’s field although we still encourage people to park in Charlton Mackrell car park or walk or cycle wherever possible.

 We have just completed an exhausting and wet Project Week. A huge thank you to Eddie, Bryn, Jane Wilson and Peter for helping Martyn and I make the most of it. Yeovil Hire Centre kindly loaned us a shredder and this enabled us to improve the paths by covering them with wood chips. We are also grateful to Duncan Almy and Will Melhuish from St Dunstan’s in Glastonbury for being such fantastic Work Experience students all week and for putting up with getting drenched. Steve Manns also came for 3 days towards his Queens Award through the Scouts. Our usual team of Huish boys also stayed for a full day on Friday with Andy Gilbert. Thank you to them all. We hope their interest and involvement in conservation work and the wood will continue.

 We are having an Open Day on 20th July from 3:30 when anyone is welcome to visit us at the site and see the improvements.

 The following courses have been run so far this year, many supported by our Awards for All grant:

• Woodland Playschemes during half terms and holidays, some at Butleigh Woods, some at Hallr Wood
• Regular Family sessions for parents/carers with young children
• Sessions for Home Educated Children including pioneering an outdoors nature inspired creative writing workshop with Jacky King
• Parent and Child Bow Making Course
• Courses for adult members and interested persons including bushcraft with Heath Dawson, a Cob Oven Workshop run by Martyn, Story Telling with Jane Flood and a Literacy Games & Creative Writing workshop with Jacky King
• After school Conservation Club, with a visit to Shapwick Heath
• Drayton Forest School- family session during Easter holidays and an after school club thanks to the Somerset Play Forum
• Forest School taster sessions for 36 Somerton Infants reception children
• A visit from Charlton’s Pre-School
• 3 sessions in Hallr Wood organized by David Langton for his Forest School Course
• Regular Forest School/Work experience for students from Crispin School
• Forest School sessions for Yr 8 pupils from Huish Episcopi Secondary School
• Forest School sessions for Curry Rivel Primary with Hannah Aitken in Drayton
• Forest School taster with camp fire lunch for 20 yr 5/6 pupils from North Cadbury

We hope to run more training and enrichment sessions for members and interested persons in the autumn;

• Foundation Stage Forest School with Tracy Cotterell who ran a Forest School Nursery for many years and now delivers Forest School at Allhallows School
• Spinning, weaving and dyeing workshop/skills share at Hannah’s
• Living History ‘Viking Days’
• Basketry

We have had stalls at the Bath & West Show, Avalon Marshes Open Day and Green & Scything Fair. Thank you to Martyn for his efforts with these. It has been encouraging to see the extent of interest in what we are trying to achieve.

 Unfortunately the Huish Federation Learning Partnership Open Afternoon scheduled for 9th July had to be cancelled because of torrential downpours. We will set another date in September. However anyone interested in our activities is welcome to make an appointment to visit at any time.

 Other news: We are grateful to the SCC Aggregates Levy who have agreed to support our holiday activities; Woodland Drama, Parent and Child Bow Making, Woodland Playschemes, Music and Stories evening session, Camp fire Cookery with Becky Sandover. We will be partnering with The Charlton’s Playscheme to offer all this holiday fun on the doorstep.

 Jane Wilson  will be organizing volunteers from now on. We are members of BTCV and are fully insured for conservation activities. We hope to have a day helping Hannah in Drayton. There may be an option to recruit helpers through BTCV. If you know of anyone who would enjoy conservation work please ask them to get in touch. We hope to have a monthly Sunday session in the autumn.

 Hope to see some of you at our Open Day.